The problem of serving or dispensing food products or food ingredients from containers in accurately controlled amounts is widely appreciated, and the dispensing art has numerous disclosures concerned with such problem.
While somewhat successful in solving this problem, many of the known solutions suffer various drawbacks due to either complexity of design or inconvenience of use. A further problem with many known metering dispenser designs is the inability of the designed device to fully seal the container between uses so that the product may have a tendency to dry out with the presently available designs.
A still further problem with many presently known metering devices is a propensity thereof to jam due to product, such as coffee, sugar or other such granular product, becoming lodged between moving elements of the device. Such jamming may prevent further use of the device, inhibit sealing of the device or vitiate the accuracy of a metering function of the device. The jamming problem may combine with a difficult-to-use drawback to produce a device that is nearly impossible to use, especially by one whose hands may be slightly disabled, as by age, disease or the like.
Accordingly, there is a need for a metering dispensing cap for use in conjunction with a container of granular food products that is easy to use, yet will not be subject to jamming and can seal the container between uses.